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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: bentleyml on June 20, 2006, 12:56:42 AM
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I'm kind of excited about the RPG using Baltimore as it's city of focus. The city that brought us Homicide: Life on the Streets. This will be wonderful. If I do end up running in Baltimore, I will HAVE to use characters from Homicide as NPCs. :D
Man I am looking forward to this.
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Also consider that it's really close to Washington, D.C. So you could have a lot of those federal plots as well.
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Also consider that it's really close to Washington, D.C. So you could have a lot of those federal plots as well.
Not to mention it's just up the Chesapeake from Annapolis - great old town with lots of character. Um, yeah, and that little academy thingie.
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YAY! This is the first I've heard of this (sorry I havent been following too well lately, life got in the way. :p ). I live in Baltimore, so this is actually really exciting. /nerd
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Stay away from Fell's Point.
Seriously.
We're putting bad shit there. :)
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So since the official city for the RPG is Baltimore, does that mean the official band of the RPG is Baltimora? I just heard Tarzan Boy while flipping on Sirius and I would love an excuse to torture players with that, especially since I had to hear it. Seriously, I am going to have Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-o-ooo-aaa in my head for days now.
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Every time I hear that song I think of the Listerine commercial that used it. Now I'll have that tune in my head all day, too. :P
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We would make it official, but it's place in history is now tied to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.
-Rob D.
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idk, maybe i'm missing something. why is the city of focus baltimore instead of chicagoland? i mean, why make such a change? that's almost like hearing that the did away with dresden's staff and blasting rod in place of a hockey stick and drumstick.
one of the focal points behind the series is that chicago is the unnoficial hub of the world, if not the united states. hell, o'hare still holds the title of busiest airport in the world. combine the two and you have the biggest reasoning behind the massive amounts of bad ju-ju behind the dresden files.
maybe it's because new england is much older and therefor more spiritually "charged" than chicago, idk.
could someone help me find the light on this one?
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It is Baltimore instead of Chicago, because chicago has already been fleshed out. It would be easy to make a game in chicago just using the books already out there. Having Baltimore as the main city for the game allowes them to make up a new envirment and try new ideas.
By the way just because it is the signature city that does not mean Baltimore is the center of all magic. It just means most of the area information in the book will be about Baltimore.
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More accurately, it is Baltimore in addition to Chicago.
We'll talk about Chicago, but in that case, it's serving the function of a book report: this is what Chicago in the Harryverse is like.
But Baltimore is our example of how to take a city you know (or sorta-know) and Dresdenify it. So our "sample campaign" is Baltimorean, but our "NPCs from the books" writeups are Chicagoan, etc.
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But Baltimore is our example of how to take a city you know (or sorta-know) and Dresdenify it. So our "sample campaign" is Baltimorean, but our "NPCs from the books" writeups are Chicagoan, etc.
Yes, and this makes sense from a RPG development standpoint because...
1. We don't want the RPG to conflict horribly with anything that Jim may write in the future. We have to just hope that he doesn't read the RPG and then decide to have Harry relocate to Baltimore 'cuz it's so cool!
2. The assumption is that players will make up their own Harry-like characters, and probably will not be playing Harry, so it doesn't need to be set there anyway.
3. If the campaign takes place down the street from Harry (or anywhere near Chicago) there will always be the feeling that Harry might appear and save the day as needed. This stinks of railroading and sucks the life out of the drama of the story.
So ... by developing Baltimore we produce a RPG that has a built-in setting, plus one can use the novels as a sourcebook for another setting. Kind of like "buy one, get one free...."
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Oh there's no end to how happy I am to hear that the game's not being set in Chicago! I already think it a bit cheap to be playing games in Chicago that don't jive with the books and can end up with Harry showing up in the end to save the day or even consult. That's just... too easy. I don't know. Can't really explain why that bothers me so much. But this is brilliant that someone else is being featured. And glad it's not New York, 'cause then there'd be official word on somewhere I've already played for over a year and I'm sure none of it would fit. I would be sad.
AD
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But Baltimore is our example of how to take a city you know (or sorta-know) and Dresdenify it. So our "sample campaign" is Baltimorean, but our "NPCs from the books" writeups are Chicagoan, etc.
Based on the "Designing Dresden" article about this, this might very well be the feature I am most looking forward to.
I think my vision for a campaign is to do a road game. The PCs are going to walk the Earth. Travel from place to place, have adventures. Be magical bums, as it were.
This goes double if anyone wants to be a Knight. Michael Carpenter is always on the road. Doesn't make much sense to keep them bound to one city.